Wikipedia:Featured list candidates/List of Major League Baseball players with a career .400 on-base percentage/archive1

The following is an archived discussion of a featured list nomination. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the article's talk page or in Wikipedia talk:Featured list candidates. No further edits should be made to this page.

The list was promoted by Dabomb87 23:16, 12 February 2010 [1].

List of Major League Baseball players with a career .400 on-base percentage

Nominator(s): Staxringold _talk^contribs 05:08, 16 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Featured list candidates/List of Major League Baseball players with a career .400 on-base percentage/archive1

I am nominating this for featured list because I feel it is up to FLC snuff, covering an interesting and classic benchmark group of great hitters. The traditional "slash stats" are a .300/.400/.500 hitter that is someone with a .300 batting average, .400 on-base percentage, and a .500 slugging percentage. I think it'll be nice to have at least the basic baseball statistics lists in better order as some of them were pretty shabby looking (this list, for example, had only one sentence of prose prior to my expansion). Also, sidenote, but I can't figure out why the equivalent batting average list is .325, despite what I've said above. This is at .400, slugging is at .500, and on-base plus slugging is at .900, but I guess for simplicity (208 players have a .300 career average) we went with a higher mark. Unrelated to this list, though. Staxringold _talk^contribs 05:08, 16 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Resolved comments from KV5

Comments from KV5

Image caption: "Todd Helton is the currently active MLB leader in on-base percentage." - I think using words like "currently" is discouraged, so I would probably change to As of October 2009 or the end of the 2009 season, Todd Helton is active MLB leader in on-base percentage.
MOS:SLASH discourages the use of slashes, so change to dropped or uncaught third strike.
"Boston Red Sox left fielder Ted Williams" - string of three links isn't great ("When possible, avoid placing links next to each other so that they look like a single link" from WP:LINK), plus Williams doesn't still play for the Red Sox. I would suggest unlinking "Left fielder" at this point, since it's not a hugely relevant link, and rewording the sentence to Left fielder Ted Williams, who played 19 seasons for the Boston Red Sox, has the highest career on-base percentage, .4817, in MLB history.
"A hitter with a .400 on-base percentage is considered to be "great" and rare," - change comma to semicolon
"elected to the Hall of Fame" - might be a good place to link to List of members of the Baseball Hall of Fame
You've got an extra cell at the end of Joe Kelley's row.
The plate appearances column is going to have to be delimited (add commas) because there are some 5-digit numbers (see MOS:NUM#Delimiting (grouping of digits)).
Check your navbox, as the link to this article is currently a redirect (probably the fault of the navbox's creator, who got rather snippy when he changed all the navboxes and got chastised).

All done. Particular thanks on the Joe Kelley find, I had been wondering what was creating that little thin blank column to the right of the table.

Any reason that the table is forced so narrow? It's forcing some rows to unnecessarily double up. KV5 (Talk • Phils) 23:25, 16 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]

I just got worried since in another FLC a user was having issues with the images and the table. I'll make it a bit bigger. Staxringold _talk^contribs 23:38, 16 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Well done. KV5 (Talk • Phils) 12:45, 16 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Support from KV5 (Talk • Phils) 15:15, 20 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Resolved comments from The Rambling Man (talk) 08:24, 22 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Comments - once again, I'm squeezing this tight, barely anything to moan about...

"n MLB history..[2]" one too many periods.

Fixed. Staxringold _talk^contribs 21:46, 16 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]

You quote a lot of OBP in the lead to four decimal places while this list is titled to three.

I could change the title to "with a career .4000", but if you read any report on baseball OBPs are almost universally reported to 3 digits. The fourth digit is used because the main B-Ref table extends it out to four (plus the data on the player pages) and there is no reason to throw away information (particularly when it breaks ties, as in this list). But if this was at List of Major League Baseball players with a career .4000 on-base percentage it would look very weird. Staxringold _talk^contribs 21:46, 16 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]

A wee bit radical, but I'd consider putting the significance of a .400 % (as you describe it in the second para) in the opening section of the first para so us non-experts can get a grip with why this list is notable.

I dunno how that would track. Current format is to have marks and records in the first para, and then historical significance in the 2nd. Staxringold _talk^contribs 21:46, 16 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Sorry to be dull (for the second of your FLCs in a row) but a non-expert needs to understand early on why .400 is relevant. I couldn't care less, nor would I know why this statistic is relevant. As soon as I got onto para 2 it became clear and very obvious that it was understood as a universally notable achievement. The Rambling Man (talk) 21:51, 16 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Fixed. Staxringold _talk^contribs 22:02, 16 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]

"Players are eligible for the Baseball Hall of Fame if they..." sorry, did I miss the bit where this was relevant to .400 % OBP? Perhaps not, I need to read on. But this again seems out of order to me. Perhaps say how many are in the BHOF and then explain why some didn't make it...?

I can swap the sentence order if you want, or stick some of that in a note, but the goal is just to make it clear that the number isn't just 27/61. Staxringold _talk^contribs 21:46, 16 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]

I see no harm in saying x .400 OBPers are in the BHOF, y aren't because.... The Rambling Man (talk) 21:51, 16 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Fixed. Staxringold _talk^contribs 22:02, 16 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Three players in this list have a % below .400. Why are they here?

They aren't, they round up to .400. Staxringold _talk^contribs 21:46, 16 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Then you need a note to say why, in my opinion. Cricket stats, for instance never round up, so .399999999 would never be .400. Just a footnote, nothing fancy.... The Rambling Man (talk) 21:51, 16 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Not sure what I would cite it to. Staxringold _talk^contribs 22:02, 16 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Yeah, I'm sure that's not as easy as it should be. We found a link for cricket from the BBC, but the problem, as I see it, is that you have a few chaps here whose stats are less than .400 with not one utterance to explain their inclusion. You see my concern? The Rambling Man (talk) 22:05, 16 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]

I have no particular connection to Mr. Giles, Selkirk, or Appling, I'll remove em. Staxringold _talk^contribs 22:22, 16 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]

The career stats pages for those players do clearly show them (at 3 digits) as .400 OBP guys (example see Giles at The Baseball Cube and Selkirk at Baseball-Reference. Interestingly, Appling is shown as .399 (http://www.baseball-reference.com/players/a/applilu01.shtml). KV5 (Talk • Phils) 22:29, 16 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Whaddya say, TRM, are their specific player pages (for the 2 that show .400 and not Appling's .399) enough citation to include them? Staxringold _talk^contribs 22:36, 16 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Well now here we're back to my query over the 4 decimal places kind-of-argument. If you use sources that say these two guys made at least .4000 then fine.... The Rambling Man (talk) 22:39, 16 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Again, the numbers are the same, the purpose of 4 decimals is merely to be more precise. Staxringold _talk^contribs 22:42, 16 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]

So are your OBP stats synthesised rather than sourced? If the source says .400 but you're saying .39xx, it would imply you're doing the "math" and therefore creating original research for this list? Again, not trying to be difficult....... The Rambling Man (talk) 22:44, 16 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]

They are neither. The same source (Baseball-Reference) provides both a list of career leaders which shows 4 decimals and player pages which show only 3. KV5 (Talk • Phils) 22:48, 16 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]

So should <.4000 be included in this list? That's the bottom line for me. If so, we'd need an explanation as to why... The Rambling Man (talk) 22:50, 16 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]

(Outdent)This goes back to the point of rounding. You wanted sourcing, this is it. When you do the precise math ([H+BB+HBP]/[AB+BB+HBP+SF]) you get the precise numbers at the main B-Ref list (.3998 for those 2) but on their player pages they are listed in only 3 digits at .400. This list uses 4 digits, as the main B-Ref list does, for precision because otherwise you'd have a plethora of ties and would be throwing away data. However, I am asking if the 2 player pages that lists these .3998 guys as .400 is sufficient to satisfy your request of citing the whole rounding thing (I guess .3995 doesn't round to .400, also, since Appling comes in at .3995 but is listed as .399 at his page). Staxringold _talk^contribs 22:50, 16 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]

I'm sure the math works out. All I'm saying is that one may be surprised, in a list of >=.400 candidates, we see two <.400 candidates. And no referenced note to explain why. Solve that, and we're done! The Rambling Man (talk) 22:54, 16 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]

I'll do it now! Stupid Brian Giles. Staxringold _talk^contribs 22:55, 16 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Sidenote, I figured out why Appling doesn't round up on his page (and thus doesn't belong on this list) despite being listed as .3995 (which would appear to round up based on rounding rules). The reason is that's already rounded. When you run his ([H+BB+HBP]/[AB+BB+HBP+SF]) you get .399449, so he's juuuuuust below the rounding line for up to .4000. He is just about as on the fence as you can be. Staxringold _talk^contribs 23:11, 16 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]

"See also related lists" not sure why you need "related lists" here, it's kind of taken as read that See also relates to related articles/lists.

Fixed, that's a holdover from the crappy version. Staxringold _talk^contribs 21:46, 16 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]

"still active" -I've been stung on soccer FLCs by not providing evidence that a particular player is "still active". I can't see how your sources show these players are "still active". Just thought I'd pass on the pain...

If they played in the last season and don't have a "Final Game" listed as the retired players do, then they are still active. This system works 99% of the time, with only very rare cases like Barry Bonds in 08 and part of 09 still considered himself a free agent but no one would sign him because of the PR nightmare that would come along (he's since made his retirement official). Staxringold _talk^contribs 21:46, 16 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]

I have no major beef with this. Just that I was asked to provide "positive" reference that "active" was "active". The Rambling Man (talk) 21:51, 16 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]

The Rambling Man (talk) 21:28, 16 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Very Minor Issue - I don't know if this has been brought up before, but may I ask why the space template ({{-}}) is after the table, is it really needed? Afro (Not a Terrible Joke) ^{- Afkatk} 09:35, 20 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Removed. Staxringold _talk^contribs 15:11, 20 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Support - Everything looks good. Afro (Its More Than a Feeling) ^{- Afkatk} 19:45, 22 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]

~~Provisional~~ support – ~~Only real issue I see is a number starting a sentence: "26 of the 42 eligible players with a career on-base percentage of .400 or higher have been elected to the Hall of Fame."~~ Other than that, everything looks good. Giants2008 (27 and counting) 20:08, 28 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Would you prefer "Of the 42 eligible players... 26 have been elected"? Staxringold _talk^contribs 20:12, 28 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Yes. That looks good. Giants2008 (27 and counting) 22:03, 29 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Done. Staxringold _talk^contribs 22:22, 29 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Support, found something to link and did that, but otherwise the list is good. Wizardman _{Operation Big Bear} 04:43, 10 February 2010 (UTC)[reply]

The above discussion is preserved as an archive. Please do not modify it. No further edits should be made to this page.